Initially, the officer responds by explaining that he’s not breaking the law because police are exempt from that law. However, those exemptions are generally based on the idea that police can disregard such laws while responding to emergencies or, at the very least, while performing official police functions. Although the exact circumstances leading up to the conversation on the video weren’t given, the officer makes it pretty clear in his response that neither of those things are the case.

After some discussion of whether the officer should be giving tickets to people for parking infractions while he himself is illegally parked, the officer soon attempts to shift the subject by lying about the legality of filming in public. According to this officer, recording in public requires the permission of the person being filmed.

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Although it’s not terribly uncommon for cops not to know the laws they are supposed to enforce or for them to try and enforce laws even though they don’t actually understand them, the fact that this officer claims that it became illegal to film him in public without permission on January 1st (implying that a new law was passed) is pretty indicative that he is intentionally lying. Shortly after, the officer uses that horrible threat that police for some reason think bothers people filming them that he will also film Smith (without having asked his permission first).

Then the discussion returns to whether he should be parking his motorcycle on a sidewalk. While continuing to maintain he is exempt from such rules and clarifying that police officers can even park cars on the sidewalk if they feel like it, the officer then readily admits that such a double standard is wrong. Quite surprisingly, he then actually promises not to park on the sidewalk next time.

If you have a video, personal story involving police misconduct and/or abuse, or commentary about a law enforcement related news story, we would be happy to have you submit it and to publish it on NVCop Block.

Kelly is a lifelong resident of Las Vegas, who’s been very active in local grassroots activism, as well as on a national level during his extensive travels. He’s also the founder/main contributor of Nevada Cop Block, served as editor/contributor at CopBlock.org and designed the Official Cop Block Press Passes. ____________________________________________________________________________ Connect with Kelly at these social networks; Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.